DOJ Releases Scathing Report on Baltimore PD

“It just confirms on paper what we've all been saying."

Baltimore has a long way to go in dealing with systematic racial discrimination in its police and government services, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a press conference today.

Rawlings-Blake, who gained national recognition as she dealt with protests in the city after the death of resident Freddie Gray in police custody in April 2015, held a press conference to address disturbing findings from a U.S. Justice Department investigation into police discrimination in the city.

The report, released earlier today, found routine racial discrimination, unconstitutional arrests, and use of excessive force that violated the rights of the city's black residents, according to NPR.

In one section it even alleged that police supervisors issued orders including to arrest 'all black hoodies' in a neighborhood, according to The Baltimore Sun.

The DOJ spent more than a year monitoring the police department at the city's request, according to CNN.

"But let me be clear: I never sugarcoat our problems nor will I run away from our most pressing challenges," she said. "I believe transparency is the only true foundation upon which we can rebuild community trust."

She said that the city has already begun trying to reform the police department even while the Justice Department was undertaking the investigation.

"We have not been standing still while this inquiry was underway," she said. "We have to heal our city," she added.

In addition to police behavior, the report noted that the relationship between the police and community was so frayed that witnesses frequently refused to share information with officers, even when they had called the police themselves, because of a lack of trust, according to NPR. It also described how economic inequality, housing segregation, disparities in educational opportunities, and lead poisoning have all left black residents at a severe disadvantage in the city.

Rawlings-Blake, when discussing those broad, city-wide problems, said "no one is waiting around until we solve poverty" before addressing the problems in the police department.

The Baltimore Police Department has fired six officers so far this year, according to Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, who said it was "a small number."

The department has tried to do away with discriminatory practices in recent years, but many of the supervisors who rose in the department under those policies have continued them, the DOJ report found, according to The Sun. Police often used the "same aggressive tactics they use with adults," for instance, according to The Sun.